Sick Star's Canceled Crowdfunding Campaign Ignites Protest

LOS ANGELES—While cooling weather finally allowed fire crews in California to get a handle on several blazes in the drought-plagued state, a conflagration of another sort flared out of control this weekend in the aftermath of the decision by online payment service provider WePay to cease processing for a crowdfunding campaign set up May 11 on GiveForward for adult performer Eden Alexander (pictured), who was suffering from a near fatal reaction to a common prescription medication. Reported CrowdFundInsider.com, "The reaction, as described on her campaign page, triggered a rare skin infection called Steven Johnson’s Syndrome. Over time this allegedly developed into a full blown MRSA/staph infection. The campaign page indicates things deteriorated over a short period of time and she 'had a heartbreaking & unfortunate personal situation happen in the middle of it all, and was left without enough money to pay bills for the past two months .. because of illness she has had to cancel all work and now has no income and no way of working for income for the time being.'" Saturday, however, the campaign came to a sudden end when GiveForward informed Alexander that her campaign had been suspended because of an alleged violation of WePay's terms of service. According to the communication received and then tweeted by Alexander on Saturday morning, "WePay's terms state that you will not accept payments or use the Service in connection with pornographic items. Therefore, their system has flagged your account and canceled its gifts since 5/13/14. "Therefore," it continued, "GiveForward was required to discontinue your GiveForward fundraiser. As a result, I've closed the page and removed it from the site as of this morning." Very quickly, people started responding to what was thought to be an unconscionable act on the part of both the payment processor and the funding site, for what amounted to a technical violation of their terms. According to TechCrunch.com, "Unfortunately, one of the campaign’s supporters tweeted offering nude pictures in exchange for donations to Alexander’s campaign, and Alexander retweeted the offer. "That retweet was deemed to violate WePay’s terms of service, which states 'you will not accept payments or use the Service in connection with the following activities, items or services: Adult or adult-related services, including escort services, adult massage, or other adult-entertainment services; Adult or adult-related content, including performers or 'cam girls'; and Obscene or pornographic items.' The list of prohibited uses of WePay is long and many items are open to broad interpretation, including the site’s own origin story." Other media outlets also weighed in along with a percentage of the Twittersphere, and by day's end WePay hadf realized it had a PR problem on its hand and had posted a statement to its blog in an attempt to address the escalating story about how yet another payment processor was making life harder than it should be for a sex worker... only this time the stakes were a lot higher than a shuttered bank account.  The blog post, titled "WePay’s Terms of Service as it relates to Adult Entertainment," read: May 17, 2014 Over the past 48 hours, there have been a flurry of conversations and activities related to the Eden Alexander campaign via our partner GiveForward. WePay honors the privacy of all our merchants and our intention is not to divulge the intricacies of campaigns but to set the record straight.  The Facts The campaign was set up on May 11, 2014 and the money collected through May 14, 2014 have been settled to her bank. Upon reviewing payments starting May 15, 2014 WePay discovered tweets from others retweeted by Eden Alexander offering adult material in exchange for donations. This is in direct violation of our terms of service as our back-end processor does not permit it. WePay has worked with other adult entertainers who use our service and abide by our terms of service without any issues. WePay is extremely empathetic to what Eden Alexander is facing and her hardship is unfathomable. We are truly sorry that the rules around payment processing are limiting and force us to make tough decisions. WePay notified GiveForward and the campaign has been shutdown as of May 17, 2014. Upon further review, WePay suspects Eden may not have been aware of the terms of service and we are offering her the ability to open a new campaign for further fundraising. We have reached out directly to Eden to help. Thank you,  WePay But Alexander and her growing league of friends had moved on, thanks to the quick assistance of Crowdtilt, a fundraising platform that, according to Crowdfund Insider, "lives by the credo to crowdfund anything. They are also the platform that helped finance the Jamaican Bobsled Team when they were in dire need of funds and also, via CrowdHoster, helped Soylent find funding after being denied by Kickstarter. And now with all of the national (and global) attention the campaign started by Kitty Fisher has quickly become fully funded having 'tilted' at $3000 on a goal of $5K. The campaign stands at over $6300 today." Actually, as of midday Monday, the campaign has received $8,800 in donations, with 25 days to go. As far as blowback for WePay and GiveForward goes, the damage may already have been done. As the dust settles from this ugly incident, past decisions by WePay that bring its claims to fairness into question are being unearthed by TechCrunch, Kitty Stryker and others. Expressing not only the sense of outrage felt by sex workers of all types, but also the determination to bring public shame upon companies perceived to be engaged in their own pernicious form of "slut shaming," Stryker wrote, "There’s a lot of eyes on this situation, and it’s not going to be great PR for the payment processor. It’ll also be excellent PR for the company who steps up and offers to process the donations that people are eager to offer." Posting Saturday, Stryker added of Alexander, "Eden was hospitalized this morning and is now being cared for, but she is still in crisis, chronic pain, and struggling. And it’s notable to me that other sex workers were the core of her support network."